John Oates Quotes

It is a culture voice, but it is a very American culture voice, and I am very used to English culture voice. So I had to work like hell to flatten those R's.

We have this wonderful language and we don't appreciate it. That's old-fashioned me, but when I went to school, everyone had elocution lessons, not to sound posh but so you could be understood.

I just didn't have time to deliver a Buffalo accent in a day, so I didn't even try it.

Are you trying to give me a hint that I should drop it? I can lose the accent; I just have to really focus on what I'm saying. And I have to talk slowly.

It's hard to learn an American accent. Some of the Rs at the ends of words are incredibly hard.

You can be as good an actor as you want but, if your accent is too strong, it's going to limit you.

Dialect was my biggest fear. So, I spent a long time working with dialect coaches just trying to get American down. I think it's very important and very easy to misinterpret.

Anyone should be very suspicious of a sentence he's written that can't be read aloud easily.

At a lecture I am asked to pronounce my name three times. I try to be slow and emphatic, "Anaïs - Anaïs - Anaïs. You just say "Anna" and then add "ees," with the accent on the "ees."

The unread is always better than the unreadable.

In contrast to my husband, I can pronounce the word nuclear.

He pronounced some of his words as if they were corks being drawn out of bottles.

Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounc'd it to you, trippingly on the tongue.

No matter which word it is, when I pronounce repeatedly, it ends up sounding utterly ridiculous and meaningless to me.

Physicist is both to my mouth and ears so awkward that I think I shall never use it. The equivalent of three separate sounds of "I" in one word is too much.

If you don't know how to pronounce a word, say it loudly. Do not compound mispronunciation with inaudibility

It's spelled J-E-A-H. If you say it like how it's spelled it's ‘jee-ah.’ But, that's boring; no one wants to hear that. So you have to really put that emphatis [sic] on that ‘J.’ And then the ‘A-H’ kinda just flows.

I, of course, don't have an accent. This is just how things sound when they are pronounced properly.

How can you trust a man who can talk for 5 minutes and you cant understand a sentence of it!

I am very up front about about my inability to pronounce things correctly. I said real-uh-tor instead of realtor until about five years ago. I just admit I have no idea how to say Theyskens! Don't be intimidated. Just be honest!

I hope that my ideas attract a lively dialogue, even if my sentences are simple. Simple sentences have always served me well. And I don't use semicolons. It's hard to read anyway, especially for high school kids. Also, I avoid irony, too. I don't like people saying one thing and meaning the other.

If you do talk dirty, make sure that you enunciate because there's nothing more embarrassing than having to repeat yourself.

A scientist sounds like a scientist because the things that come out of their mouth don't stumble, that's all. If they [said], "And the, um, a microwave, uh," you know, then you don't sound right, but if you can just get it out without stumbling then you're going to sound fine.

Language is so different from life. How am I supposed to fit the one into the other? How can I bring them together?

In my mind I am eloquent; I can climb intricate scaffolds of words to reach the highest cathedral ceilings and paint my thoughts. But when I open my mouth, everything collapses.